How Proud Is America of Michelle Obama?

One evening last summer, I happened to be at a Washington dinner party when the talk turned to whether Michelle Obama would be an asset, or a potential vulnerability, in her husband’s coming campaign. My table mates included a couple of Senators, some savvy veterans of the Clinton White House, and a member of the Obama high command. To a person, they all liked and sympathized with Mrs. Obama. And, almost to a person, they agreed that she could be a liability.

So much for conventional Beltway wisdom. Ask not whether this is the first time that Michelle Obama is proud of her country. Ask just how proud her country—and the world—must be of her. With a 76 percent approval rating in the latest Washington Post/ABC News Poll (even higher than her husband’s, which is also still high), Mrs. Obama is an undisputed asset, and a great big star. Without in any way trimming her sails, hiding her intelligence, covering her arms, or changing her obviously authentic personality, she has nevertheless managed to take control of her image as First Lady in ways not seen since Jacqueline Kennedy, if ever.When she put her left arm gently around the back of Queen Elizabeth II the other day, a hyperventilating segment of the American press corps and cable news chatterers went into near-hysterics over whether she had breached the protocol that one does not touch a woman who is entitled by birth and tradition to refer to herself in the first person plural. What went largely unnoticed here, but not in Britain, was a more remarkable thing: Whoever moved first, Her Majesty also put her arm around Mrs. Obama, in a sign of affection, clever reciprocity, or both.

No, Mrs. Obama isn’t taking solo meetings with Senators to push a big piece of her husband’s political or policy agenda, the way Hillary Rodham Clinton did. She isn’t sitting in on Cabinet meetings, as Rosalynn Carter sometimes did. She is not writing a newspaper column, like Eleanor Roosevelt, because all she has to do is call Oprah to have access to a few million ears and eyeballs whenever she wants. But she has visited most every domestic Cabinet department, to show the flag and support the administration’s agenda. She has popped up all over Washington, and planted an organic vegetable garden in her backyard.

Does she say everything that’s on her mind? No way. I have no doubt that she saves her sharpest counsel, keenest insights, and toughest criticism for the only audience that matters to her: her husband. If he is half as smart as he’s supposed to be, he’ll keep his Michelle, Ma Belle, front and center. As the Beatles used to sing, they go together well, tres bien ensemble.